Harry Potter and the Forms of Fate
by Splunge
Summary: PostOotP. Having finally discovered the prophecy responsible for ruining his life so far, Harry has many questions. Is fate really predetermined, or is there a way out? Follow Harry's sixth year as he starts preparing.


**Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. If I was, I wouldn't be submitting a sixth year story a week before the real deal comes out. I'm merely playing with her characters (except for the ones I make up). No profit is being made from this work (If I'm gonna profit from a story, it might as well be with my own characters). **

**Harry Potter and the Forms of Fate**

**Chapter 1**

It was a rather dreary day in Little Whinging, Surrey. Clouds hung heavy in the sky, silently threatening to soak the first person foolish enough to step outside. Children's faces could be seen staring blankly from the windows, searching for something to do and not finding it.

One such face appeared at a second floor window of Number 4, Privet Drive. Anyone looking would have noticed that the face belonged to a teenage boy with black hair and glasses. Anyone looking really closely would have noticed a small, lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead. And anyone with nothing better to do than sit and watch the upstairs windows of Number 4, Privet Drive for days on end would be able to report that the face had been appearing at that window every 20 minutes for the last several days.

Harry Potter was currently trying to work out exactly who would be willing to sit and watch his window in this kind of drab weather. It was something to do, and he was bored out of his skull. There would be someone watching; of that he had no doubt. After last year's attack and the events which occurred during his last term at school, it was foolish to assume otherwise. The trouble was in catching them in the act; it was amazing how well a person could hide themselves using a little bit of magic. Disillusionment charms, invisibility cloaks, and magical disguises were all common among his watchers.

Oddly enough, Harry wasn't too worried about so many magical items being used to spy on him. Harry was a wizard, just back from his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Spells and enchanted artefacts were par for the course, as far as he was concerned; he even had his own invisibility cloak tucked away in the bottom of his trunk. He was far more worried about said magical items being discovered by his relatives, who were currently holed up in the living room, watching a documentary on the common hummingbird on the only TV channel seemingly not affected by the cloudy weather.

The Dursleys were firmly anti-magic (thank you very much), so much so that they didn't even acknowledge Harry most days, preferring simply to pretend that he didn't exist. That was fine by him, as silence was definitely preferable to their constant verbal abuse of his parents, himself, and the magical world in general (as far as they deigned to admit it existed). The Dursleys were what the wizarding community referred to as 'muggles'; non-magical people who were generally unaware that the magical world even existed.

Harry's attention was drawn back to the front garden as one of his aunt's prize-winning azalea bushes shuddered. Looking closer, he could just make out a pair of artfully-torn jeans and some sneakers poking out from under what was assuredly an invisibility cloak. The seemingly amputated feet walked carefully towards the rhododendrons, slipped on the wet garden path, slid across the lawn, and crashed into a patch of rosebushes. Harry thought he heard muffled swearing coming from the prickly nest the feet had ended up in, and couldn't help chuckling; nothing like watching Tonks bungle her way through a guard shift to clear away some of the boredom.

With the mystery of the Potter Prowlers solved, Harry flopped down on his bed and waited for something new to happen. Not a lot had been happening so far these holidays, and while normally Harry would be glad of the relative calm, he found himself wanting to do something …anything! Normally, he would have taken a walk around the block, or down to the local park, and the weather be damned, but this year it wasn't just the threat of rain keeping him inside. This year, Voldemort was back, and he had no reason to remain in hiding anymore.

The previous June, Voldemort had lured Harry and his closest friends to the Department of Mysteries underneath the Ministry of Magic, in order to obtain the archived copy of a prophecy made before Harry was even born. In the skirmish that had followed, Voldemort had been revealed to the wizarding world, and Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, had been killed by his own cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange.

Harry felt a surge of rage at the memory of Sirius' killer. Bellatrix had been one of those to ambush them in the department of mysteries. It was she who taunted them the most; she who had tortured Neville for the fun of it. It was her fault that Sirius was no longer among the living; her fault Harry had been forced to face Voldemort once again; her fault that he was forced to live in this house where he was hated for what he was. It was her fault. It was all her fault! It wasn't fair!

It was the twinge in his scar which snapped Harry out of his fury; the twinge which signalled Voldemort's presence in his mind. His rage disappeared, dowsed in the icy chill of his fear as he lay, huddled against the foreign intruder to his thoughts. The fury always attracted him, as a fly is drawn to honey. Harry felt Voldemort start searching, sifting for the information he desired, and hastily he tried to fight against it, pushing away the memories which the dark lord could use, and focused instead on the easiest thing to grasp at the time: his fear. He felt the touch tremble, an echo of ghostly laughter, before the presence withdrew from his mind, leaving him trembling.

It was many minutes before he regained himself enough to consider getting up. Still shaking, he made his way over to the mirror and studied his reflection. His face was still pale from the shock of the intrusion, and his scar was an angry red, contrasting shockingly with his now waxen features. His hair hung limp over his brow, heavy with perspiration, yet still contrary enough to stick up slightly towards the back. All in all, he looked a mess, and felt worse.

Stumbling back over to the window, he considered his situation. Thanks to the blood protection laid down by Albus Dumbledore almost 15 years before, he was safe in this house for as long as his aunt allowed him to live there. Nobody who meant him harm could enter the house, and the constant guards stopped anyone from even getting close enough to try. However, it was quickly becoming obvious that Voldemort had other, far more convenient avenues to attack him through. His scar formed a mental link between the two of them, and appeared to circumvent the various magical barriers placed around his home. So far, it was only the fear which had saved him, filling his mind until nothing else could remain. But some day, Voldemort would find a way around that obstacle, and take what he desired: the prophecy.

The prophecy was the real reason he was here, confined to his aunt's home and guarded day and night by the Order of the Phoenix. According to the prophecy, he was the only person alive capable of killing Voldemort once and for all. Not that his victory was assured; only the final confrontation was mentioned, revealing that one of them would die. Harry was hoping it would be Voldemort.

Not that Voldemort knew all this. The only people alive who knew the prophecy in it entirety were Dumbledore and Harry himself. The only part Voldemort knew was the first half, the half which his spy had overheard before being discovered, the half which identified Harry as his potential destroyer. Acting on that knowledge, he had attacked Harry's family with the intention of killing him before he could grow up to be a threat. After succeeding in murdering Harry's parents, he had attempted to curse Harry, only to have his curse rebound on him, banishing him to torments unimaginable and leaving Harry with the scar which linked him to his would-be killer.

Harry glanced back out of the window to see if anything interesting had happened since his last peek. The heavens had finally decided to follow through on their earlier threat, and a steady rainfall soaked the streets and drenched poor Tonks, who had taken what cover she could nearer the house (her position given away by a careless elbow poking out from under the cloak). Still, he found himself wishing he could go outside for a walk around the block, if nothing else. A normal person would have the luxury of strolling out with an umbrella, whereas Harry was trapped within the boundary of the heavy wards protecting the house. A normal person could take their protection with them…

Harry jerked upright at that thought. The wards were a means of keeping him safe and untouched from magical threats, in the same way the house protected him from physical threats, such as rain. However, a muggle could simply carry an umbrella; an artificial roof. Surely there was some way he could ward himself so he could travel beyond the safety of the house, even if it was only for a short length of time? What he needed was a way to carry the wards with him wherever he went.

Harry tried to think of the best person to ask about manipulating wards. Hermione was a possibility, since she seemed to know a bit about everything and would see the question as a challenge, but she didn't really have any experience with wards. His best mate, Ron, might know a little bit, having grown up in the wizarding world, but more likely he'd just passed off wards as a fact of life and gone back to dreaming about quidditch. Dumbledore would definitely know about the wards protecting him, but since he was the one who insisted on placing Harry in them in the first place, it was unlikely he would help Harry escape them. What Harry needed was someone close, who was trustworthy, and knew a lot about breaking through magical protections.

Harry smiled as it came to him. Ron's oldest brother, Bill Weasley, was a curse breaker for Gringotts, the wizarding bank. He'd spent many years in Egypt, breaking through the curses left behind by the ancient sorcerors to protect the tombs of the pharaohs. If anyone knew about manipulating unknown wards, it would be him. Plus, being part of the Weasley family and a member of the Order of the Phoenix, he was trustworthy enough.

Harry walked over to his desk and grabbed a quill and a sheet of the special parchment given to him a week before by Mad Eye Moody. Charmed for secrecy, it was only readable by the intended recipient, and also protected itself from interception by bursting into flame if the delivery owl did not give it up willingly. It was the one concession given him by the order so that he could keep in contact with his friends, without worrying about revealing important secrets.

Twenty minutes later, he read through the finished letter. Sensing she would be needed, Hedwig flew over and perched on the back of his chair, waiting. Satisfied that it covered everything Bill could need to know about the wards, and what was needed, he signed it with a confident flourish. Turning around, he tied the scroll to Hedwig's leg and carried her over to the rain-spattered window. Hedwig looked out the window and then glanced back at Harry, clearly disapproving of the flying conditions

"Sorry about sending you out in this weather, girl, but I need this to get to Bill Weasley before I die of boredom. If I get the right answer, I'll be able to go out and get you those gourmet owl treats you like so much."

Satisfied with that answer, Hedwig gave him a playful nip on the nose before soaring out the window into the grey sky, heading steadily north-east towards London. Harry watched her disappear into the clouds, before glancing down to see Tonks gazing in the same direction, obviously wondering where Harry was sending a letter, and carelessly revealing her head in the process. Harry sighed; now the only thing to do was wait, and hope Bill's reply was what he needed. If Tonks was the best they had to guard him, he'd need all the protection he could get.

* * *

Well, that's it for the first chapter. If there's anyone out there reading this, feel free to drop me a line with a review, or even just a quick 'hello, how ya going?' Now for a few questions I'm sure some of you are likely to ask, just to get them out of the way.

Q. Erm, you do know book six is coming out in a week, don't you? Why start this story now?  
A. Yep, I've even got my copy on pre-order. Basically, I'm starting now because now is when I'm ready to write the story. I've been planning this story for over a year now, and I'm not going to let something like the sixth book get in my way.

Q. So, what is the story going to be about?  
A. This story is going to be about getting Harry ready to discover 'the power the dark lord knows not', and also covers some questions he will likely have about the prophecy itself, like whether it's a definite future or an avoidable one. This is actually the first part of a 2 year story, so you can expect a sequel when I'm done with this one.

Q. Will it cover anything from the 6th book when it comes out?  
A. No. This story is self contained and might as well be considered AU right now, considering the timing. It's possible I may borrow a spell or background character from HBP if it suits the story, but most of it is planned, and I don't intend to use any of the plot or main characters from HBP.

Q. Who will Harry end up with?  
A. That's for me to know and you to find out :P The heavy Harry shipping won't start until the sequel, although it should be fairly obvious by about midway through the story who I'm planning on pairing him up with. I'm going to be taking things slow, though, so don't expect a whirlwind romance.

Q. How long will the story/chapters be?  
A. No idea, really. Most of the details will be worked out as I go along. As a rough estimate, I'd say the entire book will end up being somewhere between the size of PoA and GoF. Chapters will be as long as they need to be.

Q. How often do you plan to update?  
A. I don't plan. Most likely, I'll update once a month, but it will depend on many factors.

That should to it for now. I'll cover any extra question which pop up in reviews at the end of the next chapter, and I'll try to keep my profile updated on my progress. Cya soon (I hope).


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